Five days after we adopted our dog Nala from the shelter, she woke up listless and not interested in her food.
The vet at the shelter told me not to be alarmed if she experienced digestive upset the first week, that it’s common and to be expected due to the changes in her life.
Nonetheless, since she’s so new to us, I wanted to confirm that everything was okay and made an appointment at the vet.
Our usual vet was on vacation and her secretary recommended someone else. Before I even walked into the building for the appointment, Nala was feeling so much better that I wondered if I should cancel the appointment.
But I decided to get her checked out anyway.
Everything was fine until the vet asked what I fed her the day before, and I responded, “Chicken.”
“Chicken?!” she asked in disbelief. “With bones?”
“Yes, it was raw”, I assured her, knowing that the potential issue in giving bones is only when they are cooked.
(Before deciding to feed our dog a raw carnivore diet, which is frankly intuitive for carnivorous animals descended from wolves, I first did research on how to do it in a balanced and healthy way. I found the teachings of veterinary surgeon Dr. Ian Billinghurst, ‘father’ of the raw feeding approach, with over four decades of experience, particularly valuable.)
She became accusatory and hostile, and it was obvious she viewed me as a wildly irresponsible dog owner who was on track to be a dog killer.
“No, you absolutely can not give that! Would you eat raw chicken? You can’t give it to your dog, either! She’ll get salmonella or e-coli poisoning.”
I was in disbelief at the absurdity of her question. Since when is the guideline of what to feed a pet based on what a person eats? Dogs have a different digestive system than humans, and are scavengers who routinely bury their food only to dig it up to eat weeks later after it’s rotted. I think Nala can handle a raw chicken wing.
But instead of saying any of what I was thinking, I asked for clarification: “So you’re saying the chicken and meat has to be cooked?”
“No! No meat or chicken at all! They need to have appropriate dog food.”
Conveniently, she happens to sell the perfectly formulated combination of grains, seed oils and meat byproducts that is known as kibble. “It’s expensive, but it’s very good quality.”
I don’t care how many scientists worked on that formulation. It’s not biologically appropriate and there’s no way the quality can compete with what I’m feeding her.
I have a section of the freezer packed with her food: chicken wings, turkey necks, chicken hearts, liver, beef tongue, beef roast, and on Shabbos morning when I go to shul, I leave her a meaty beef bone to chew on. I also give her eggs and raw goat milk. I feed according to the 80/10/10 ratios: 80 percent protein, 10 percent bone, 10 percent organ meat (half of that is liver).
The vet diagnosed Nala with a mild digestive infection – from the chicken, she said – and gave me antibiotics for her. (I didn’t use them – I gave her vitamin C powder in her water as soon as we got home.) I didn’t bother making any query about digestive upset the first week in a new home being expected.
After presenting me with a bill of almost 500 shekels, she again stressed that dogs can’t eat food that people eat.
“It’s not like it was once upon a time, when people gave their pets table scraps and the pets only lived three years. Now you’ve learned a lesson for next time.”
Actually, dogs lived dramatically longer when they lived off table scraps instead of kibble, and once they began eating commercial dog food, human diseases like cancer and diabetes became common.
She was right about one thing: I learned a lesson. It just wasn’t the lesson she thought she had taught me, to only give my dog kibble.
I learned that we are woefully misaligned and I will not be going back.
After I got home and did some more research, I learned that veterinary nutritional training is paid for by the pet food companies. The things I’ve learned about pet nutrition will keep animals much healthier and living longer lives, but it’s not what is being taught.
I understand that the vet and I are products of different education and different paradigms. My biggest issue wasn’t that we disagreed, but that she wasn’t respectful and communicated in a hostile manner. I speak to a lot of people about a lot of things, and am comfortable with different viewpoints being shared. I’m not okay with disrespect.
She did admonish me to immediately get pet health insurance, since as a young dog Nala is expected to have a lifetime of vet visits in her future. We have different ideas about that, too.
I took our last dog to vet once in six years for a diagnosis, then treated him at home with vitamin C.
I didn’t raw feed him but I did minimize the kibble since it became obvious he hated it and would only eat it if he were desperate. He had very good health, with people constantly mistaking him for a much younger dog, and his past owners were shocked he was still living when we spoke the year before he died.
I’m confident that this nutritional approach will give my dog the best possible life, so we’ll be sticking with what we’re doing.
Avivah
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